But imagine the Rural District Council of Nether Footlesby dealing with a design by Sir Felix Lutfield, R.A., for a large country-house in their area, for it must be remembered that control of design would apply to houses great and small, designed by architects great and small as well as by people who were not architects. These worthy men might reject his plans because they disliked the appearance of the chimneys; or Councillor Trapp, a plumber by calling, might have a grievance against Sir Felix owing to an unfortunate difference of opinion arising from a previous association in building. It is evident that such a position is unthinkable. Nor would the situation be materially improved if the two auctioneer-architects practising in Nether Footlesby, the retired art-mistress living in the village, and the Vicar of the parish, were entrusted with this responsible task. It needs little imagination to realise that a small advisory committee of this calibre would be nearly as dangerous and quite as futile as the Rural District Council itself. Even if control were administered on a county basis, there are small counties in England where it would be difficult to enlist a committee of men whose decisions would be readily accepted by the bigwigs of the architectural profession. It seems to me that a very carefully drafted scheme of control might be organised for most of the large cities and perhaps half the counties of England, though even then the situation would bristle with difficulties, but for the more scattered districts--where at least an equal number of mistakes is being made--the problem seems insoluble. The London Society and the Birmingham Civic Society are the sort of bodies that might be trusted to frame a scheme, but even they would experience many setbacks before they obtained statutory powers. Much good work in the direction of controlling unwise development in France has been done by the local _Syndicats d’initiative_, bodies which exist to preserve the amenities of each town or district. A study of the methods used in France, and of measures adopted recently in Italy, would doubtless be helpful in our own case. Failing control of this kind, it has been suggested that the builder must be “brought to his senses,” in the diplomatic words of a writer in _The Times_ of January 7th, 1927. But, so long as the builder continues to sell his houses without any difficulty and at a considerable profit, he may not see any reason for admitting that he is deficient in sense. Who, for instance, is to be empowered to stop him decorating his gables with a ludicrous parody of half-timbering, made of inch boards which warp in the sun? The small builder obtains many of his designs from printed books or from weekly journals, and the following authentic extract from a recent publication shows how it is done: